Este libro supone una invitación para descubrir la cultura y la literatura mormonas desde una perspectiva muy personal, así como un viaje fascinante al territorio literario de Phyllis Barber, una vasta extensión de un terreno físico y emocional donde los límites se entrecruzan y el tiempo teje nidos que trascienden la narrativa. Ángel Chaparro analiza el proyecto social y cultural de la ficción y las autobiografías de Phyllis Barber; examina la influencia de la cultura mormona, del paisaje del Oeste americano y de los acontecimientos históricos en su escritura; y trata de anticipar el espacio que sus libros ocupan en el desarrollo en curso de la literatura mormona y de la cultura del Oeste americano. Este original análisis va precedido de una historia de La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días.

Provides never before known corrections to translating Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Miracles, premonitions, visits from the dearly departed: these are the subjects of the short stories that lend Parting the Veil its name. They are based on actual events. Even the tale of Ida, a Sunday school organist, and how one day she put all her underclothing in the wash and pranced naked through the spin cycle, thinking no one would ever know. The ensuing comedy confirms that God sees everything.

Quaker characters have peopled many an American literary work—most notably, "Uncle Tom’s Cabin"—as Quakerism has been historically associated with progressive attitudes and the advancement of social justice. With the rise in recent years of the Christian romance market, dominated by American Evangelical companies, there has been a renewed interest in fictional Quakers. In the historical Quaker romances analyzed in this book, Quaker heroines often devote time to spiritual considerations, advocate the sanctity of marriage and promote traditional family values. However, their concern with social justice also leads them to engage in subversive behavior and to question the status quo, as illustrated by heroines who are active on the Underground Railroad or are seen organizing the Seneca Falls convention. Though relatively liberal in terms of gender, Quaker romances are considerably less progressive when it comes to race relations. Thus, they reflect America’s conflicted relationship with its history of race and gender abuse, and the country’s tendency to both resist and advocate social change. Ultimately, Quaker romances reinforce the myth of America as a White and Christian nation, here embodied by the Quaker heroine, the all-powerful savior who rescues Native Americans, African Americans and Jews while conquering the hero’s heart.

The texts included in this anthology illustrate the wide range of possibilities that abolitionist writings offered to American children during the first half of the nineteenth century. Composing their works under the wings of the antislavery movement, authors responded to the unequal and controversial development of abolitionist politics during the decades that led up to the outbreak of the Civil War. These writers struggled to teach children “to feel right,” and attempted to instruct them to actively respond to the injustice of the slavery system as rendered visible by a harrowing visual archive of suffering bodies compiled by both English and American antislavery promoters. Reading was equated with knowledge and knowledge was equated with moral responsibility, and therefore reading about “the abominations of slavery” became an act of emotional personal transformation. Children were thus turned into powerful agents of political change and potential activists to spread the abolitionist message. Invited to comply with a higher law that entailed the breaking of their nation’s edicts, they were morally rewarded by the Christian God and approvingly applauded by their elders for their violation of these same American regulations. These texts enclosed immeasurable value for young nineteenth-century Americans to fulfill a more democratic and egalitarian role in their future. Undoubtedly, abolitionist writings for children took away American children’s innocence and transformed them into juvenile abolitionists and empowered compassionate citizens.